Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, a class of economically vulnerable Arizonians who receive public health care benefits through the state's Medicaid agency, sued the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) and the Director of Arizona's medicaid agency (director)(collectively, defendants), alleging that the heightened mandatory co-payments violated Medicaid Act, 42 U.S.C. 1396a, cost sharing restrictions, that the waiver exceeded the Secretary's authority, and that the notices they received about the change in their health coverage was statutorily and constitutionally inadequate. The court affirmed the district court's conclusion that Medicaid cost sharing restrictions did not apply to plaintiffs and that Arizona's cost sharing did not violate the human participants statute. The court reversed the district court insofar as it determined that the Secretary's approval of Arizona's cost sharing satisfied the requirements of 42 U.S.C. 1315. The court remanded this claim with directions to vacate the Secretary's decision and remanded to the Secretary for further consideration. Finally, the court remanded plaintiffs' notice claims for further consideration in light of intervening events.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) was named as a defendant in an action alleging civil rights violations. LVMPD had an insurance policy with respondent Coregis Insurance to protect against liability for police officer actions when the damages exceeded a certain amount. Coregis denied LVMPD coverage for the civil rights claims because LVMPD did not notify Coregis of its potential liability until ten years after the incident that led to the lawsuit. After settling the action, LVMPD filed a declaratory-judgment action seeking a judicial determination that Coregis was required to defend and indemnify LVMPD for damages related to the civil rights claims. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of Coregis, concluding that LVMPD's notice was clearly late and that Coregis was prejudiced by the late notice. The Supreme Court reversed the summary judgment, holding (1) when an insurer denies coverage of a claim because the insured party failed to provide timely notice of the claim, the insurer must demonstrate that notice was late and that it was prejudiced by the late notice in order to assert a late-notice defense to coverage; and (2) there were genuine issues of material fact regarding the timeliness of LVMPD's notice. Remanded.

Appellant, an African-American resident of Texas, sued appellees alleging that their credit-scoring systems employed several undisclosed factors which resulted in disparate impacts for minorities and violated the federal Fair Housing Act ("FHA"), 42 U.S.C. 3601, 3619. At issue, in a certified question, was whether Texas law permitted an insurance company to price insurance by using a credit-score factor that had a racially disparate impact that, were it not for the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. 1012(b), would violate the FHA, absent a legally sufficient nondiscriminatory reason, or would using such a credit-score factor violate Texas Insurance Code ("Code") sections 544.002(a), 559.051, 559.052, or some other provision of Texas law. The court answered the certified question by holding that Texas law did not prohibit an insurer from using race-neutral factors in credit-scoring to price insurance, even if doing so created a racially disparate impact.